When I reviewed
Volume 1 some time ago I named Schipa
"the aristocrat among tenors".
That also goes for this issue. His was
never a large voice, he didn’t have
an easy high C and many other tenors
had more beautiful voices, but no one
used his voice in a more beautiful way.
He never forced, he phrased everything
and coloured his tone to perfection.
He used rubato in a way rarely heard
since and his pianissimo singing was
beautiful. Moreover he possessed that
indefinable thing charm, which
made him communicate through his singing,
even the many ditties that he recorded
and of which there are several on this
disc. Gigli also had charm, and a more
glorious voice, but he also had some
bad manners that Schipa was completely
devoid of – in one word: Schipa had
taste.

There is evidence of
that on every track on this disc, which
includes his last acoustic recordings
(tracks 1–4) as well as his earliest
electricals. Starting with his Duke
of Mantua in the first act duet with
Gilda, E il sol dell’anima, we
hear all these attributes: the tone,
slim and elegant, the rubato, the shading
from a forte seamlessly down to pianissimo.
This is a lesson to latter day tenors
– and some of them learnt it: Cesare
Valletti did, Alfredo Kraus did and
it seems that Joseph Calleja also has
- see my review of his latest recital
disc. An added attraction to this and
the following two tracks is the pure
tone of Amelita Galli-Curci in roles
that fitted her as a glove. Her Lucia
is fabulous (track 2) and listen to
Schipa’s tasteful embellishments; so
graceful. In the Don Pasquale
duet their voices blend to perfection
and there is no wonder that this disc
survived in the catalogue until the
end of the 78 rpm era in the early 1950s.
The last of the acoustical items, Barthelemy’s
Pesca d’ammore is worth a listen
just to hear how Schipa relishes the
text. There and in several other songs
(e.g. tracks 6, 13 and 14) it’s a joy
to hear every consonant so clearly articulated.

When the electrical
recording method was introduced in 1925
it was of course a gain, most of all
for the reproduction of the orchestra,
where for the first time the strings
could be heard with something approaching
real life sound. It was still a constricted
sound but for the listeners in the 1920s
it must have been little short of a
revelation. The voice is of course also
fuller and with more air around it.
It must have been a special pleasure
for Schipa that his very first electrical
recording was of his own composition
Ave Maria, which is affectionately
sung – is it only my imagination that
hears an extra glow, an extra beauty
in his voice with a hint of an emotional
extra vibrato? Anyway, the end is magical
by all standards.

His Duke of Mantua
appears once again on track 8. There
he delivers La donna è mobile
with such elegance and ravishing diminuendos
that even the listener who doesn’t know
it already realizes that this is an
aristocrat, however callous and mean,
which his little chuckle in the second
stanza reveals.

Every piece on the
disc has something to offer, and irrespective
of how many times you have heard O
sole mio, Schipa, with fiery castanets
in the background, sings it with such
restrained glow that it feels like a
new song. No bawling and no glass-shattering
top notes, just unforced beautiful singing.

Liszt’s Liebestraum,
in Schipa’s own arrangement, was a song
from the beginning and is recorded here
with piano accompaniment. Rather closely
miked, the voice leaps out of the speakers
with amazing presence and the reproduction
of the piano is impressive. Maybe his
singing is a shade too forceful but
the last stanza, sung in half-voice,
is magical.

After some charmingly
sung songs he is back in the operatic
field for the last seven tracks, with
an inward M’appari from Martha
and with two takes of Una furtiva
lagrima, both splendid and challenged
only by a mere handful of other recordings,
one of them his own remake from 1929.
Partnered by the divine Lucrezia Bori
in the last act duet from La Bohème
he is an impassioned Rodolfo. He rounds
off the recital with wonderfully nuanced
readings (in French) of arias from Werther
and Lakmé. The end to
both arias is so exquisite.

Restored by Ward Marston
and previously released on Romophone
with notes by Alan Blyth this second
volume can be confidently recommended.
It is a disc to return to over and over
again and savour the delicacies – not
perhaps in one continuous sitting but
one or two titles at a time, the way
people did before the advent of the
long playing record.

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